Sai
Baba's Ashram at Puttaparthi.

My
friend Deirdre was living in Sai Baba's ashram in Puttaparthi. I joined
her and hundreds of others sleeping on the floor, in the heat and dust
of the "foreign ladies" shed.

Tina
Schneider from Berlin

I
had long talks with the women I met there, like Tina Schneider from
Berlin who had been there five weeks. She would get sick when she left
the ashram.

The shed was like a refugee camp. Why are you all living like this,
I asked. "Sai is God; can't you feel the love?" they answered.

To
understand what on earth they were thinking, I began reading everything
I could about Indian spirituality. I knew I definitely didn't need a
guru

Meanwhile
I lined up with the others before 4 in the morning to get a good spot
in the mandir for darshan. Sai Baba would walk among us and we could
look at him. People were being cured by touching him. He distributed
vibhuti, sacred ash and lollies. People vied for his attention.

Sathya
Sai Baba

The
feast of Shivaratri was approaching. The crowds were growing--Indians
love to go to famous ashrams of holy men for the great feasts. Sai Baba
had millions of devotees. Conditions were getting unbearable. I bolted
to Bangalore.

Bangalore

The Bangalore Tennis Club

In
Bangalore I soaked up the pleasures of India--touring the five star
hotels with devotees of Sai Baba, hanging out at the Bangalore Club
with some elderly English ladies, photographing the beautiful residences
built by the British, and all the while reading whatever books my friends
gave me or recommended--Yogananda, Ramana Maharshi, Sri Aurobindo, Shankaracharya.

When
Sai Baba moved up to Whitefield, I went to his ashram there and offered
him a painting I had made and some flowers. He looked at me. Something
happened to me that day. I realized that I could take that life anywhere.
But after a week I was afraid that if I didn't leave, I would become
like the other ladies who felt they couldn't leave.

Goa--Candolim
Beach

Doriasukh

With
Espy Roderick

I
could worship anywhere; I didn't have to stay there. I mentally asked
Sai Baba for permission to leave, and I booked a flight to Goa, that
bastion of Catholicism. I stayed in Doriasukh, a house on the beach
in Candolim, belonging to the Rodericks, a Catholic family, who befriended
me, fed me, said the rosary every night, and made Indian clothes for
me while I "made a retreat," reading books about India's secret.

Doriasukh

View from my balcony

On the Candolim
beach on Holi

For
10 days I relaxed in Doriasukh, visited with people I met on the beach,
and thought about what I was reading and what was happening to me. What
I had learned was that Indian spirituality definitely believes that God
is within--really and truly present, and that every person is therefore
divine. On Holi, the day that they throw colored dies on everyone's clothes,
I left for New Delhi. It was also the feast of St. Joseph, always an auspicious
day for me.

New
Delhi

Mrs.
Pukar runs the Lord's Guest House in Delhi

In
New DelhiI stayed at the Lord's Guest House,
where Mrs. Pukar was the proprietor. She told me "You have been sent
to me. Do you meditate? You must meditate." I took her words as coming
from St. Joseph himself. That evening she took me across the M.G. Marg
to the Muktananda Ashram for the Holi celebration. She made me dance in
the saptah. She got me a tape of "Om Namah Shivayah" the mantra
of Siddha Yoga, and some books to read.

The
next morning, she insisted that I come to her and her husband's bedroom
to meditate with them. She was teaching me what I must do. That evening
she had me come to chant with her in her puja. But the next day I escaped
to go see the Taj Mahal. On the way back, our bus broke down, my shoulder
froze up, and I barely made it back alive. I was convinced I hadn't come
to India to be a tourist.

During
the week of enforced leisure at the Guest House, with hot water bottles
on my shoulder, I read a number of Muktenanda's books and found them
clearer than any of the others I had been reading. It was like the static
was gone and the channel was open and clear.
When I returned to Chicago, someone told me of the Siddha
Yoga group in Chicago, and I have been chanting and meditating with
them ever since.